Farmers who hope the end of La Nina will bring a reprieve from cold, wet conditions shouldn’t expect too much, say weather experts.
The La Nina weather pattern causes water in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean to get colder than usual. This affects the jet stream in North America, generally causing colder than average winters and more precipitation.
La Nina is now officially over, but Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. says western Canadian farmers won’t see much change because other weather patterns are now affecting the weather and remnants of La Nina still linger in the atmosphere.
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“We will see warmer weather than last summer, but we’ll still have our moments where we’re going to be cooler than usual,” he said.
Any potential for warmer weather caused by the end of La Nina is likely to arrive too late for many western Canadian farmers because seeding is already underway, said Bruce Burnett, director of weather market analysis for the Canadian Wheat Board.
Burnett described the current weather pattern as a neutral phase between La Nina and its opposite, El Nino.
“I don’t think going to a neutral phase points us to drier weather than average,” he said. “It basically points us to not necessarily having the extreme cool and wet conditions that we’ve had in other growing seasons.”
Lerner said Saskatchewan is likely to see the worst weather on the Prairies this summer. Manitoba will see less frequent and less significant rain as the summer progresses, while Alberta should see a bit less moisture in the Peace River region.
He said an abundance of moisture still in the ground and intermittent pockets of coolness throughout the summer will likely cause a small increase in extreme weather such as hailstorms and tornados.
“There will definitely be some severe weather and it will probably befocusedon Saskatchewan,” he said.
